SpeakOut is Truthout's treasure chest for bloggy, quirky, personally reflective, or especially activism-focused pieces. SpeakOut articles represent the perspectives of their authors, and not those of Truthout.

New York –Two unprecedented applications are pending that, if approved, would allow the commercial sale of millions of genetically engineered (GE) eucalyptus trees for development into vast industrial GE tree plantations in the US and Brazil. The Campaign to STOP GE Trees [1] is expanding and mobilizing to stop these and all large-scale releases of GE trees into the environment.

In the US, ArborGen has a request pending with the Department of Agriculture to commercially sell freeze-tolerant GE eucalyptus trees; at the same time in Brazil, Futuragene has requested permission to release GE eucalyptus trees from CTNBio, Brazil's biosafety regulatory agency. CTNBio is planning a public hearing on the Futuragene GE tree application on 4 September. The USDA could release their draft ruling at any time.

A court in Yemen today heard that an American citizen who disappeared in February this year may have been transferred to a secretive, US-funded ‘court’ which has been strongly criticised by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for failing to meet international fair trial standards.

Sharif Mobley, from New Jersey, disappeared from Sana’a Central Prison six months ago and has been held in secret detention ever since. He has not been produced for any of his last four trial hearings in a civilian court in the country’s capital, where he is facing murder charges. He continues to be denied any access to his lawyers.

Washington, D.C. – Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and co-counsel Joseph Margulies filed a motion asking the Court of Military Commission Review to vacate former Guantánamo prisoner David Hicks’s conviction in the military commissions for “material support for terrorism.” Hicks appealed his conviction in November, following the D.C. Circuit’s 2012 decision in Hamdan v. United States, which held that material support for terrorism is not a war crime and, thus, is beyond the jurisdiction of military commissions. Hicks’s appeal was stayed pending the ruling in Al-Bahlul v. United States, which similarly held last month that material support is not a war crime and cannot be tried by military commission. Hicks – who was also a party to the historic Supreme Court ruling in Rasul v. Bush – pled guilty in 2007, the first prisoner to be convicted in a military commission.

“The D.C. Circuit ruled unanimously that material support could not be tried in a military commission under any set of facts or theory of law before 2006. No matter how this case is framed, David Hicks was convicted of a non-offense,” said CCR Senior Staff Attorney Wells Dixon. “The principled and just result is to set aside his conviction without delay, as would happen in any ordinary criminal case. David Hicks committed no crimes, but has suffered horribly from his ordeal at Guantánamo, and he deserves relief.”

Cut off, separated, fractured, on the outside, buying, spending, everything monitored, everything under the hard eyes of the police state, everything kept in check by the gatekeepers of the dream. The smallest move threatening the structure of the institution and the weapons come out in an instant, people dragged away in chains and everyone left cowering on the floor. The USA - where everyone seems like they're doing what they want, but the entire place is under lockdown control.

Liberty, freedom, democracy are privileges given and taken away. Laws, equality, rights open with the markets and the markets are closed. Torture is not torture, war is not war, and corporations are people. A society of riches built on deprivation; a nation of prison, reality is the yard. When there is a fraudulent essence at the heart of a society, then amorality becomes integrity, stupidity becomes culture, and the shadows become home to those who refuse the lie. We again find ourselves in the best of all possible worlds, the best country in the history of the planet, the freest, bravest, finest. When the constitution is devoured, then that country becomes a monster of negation, an obese anorexic, a foregone conclusion. Idiocy becomes patriotic duty. Six hours of TV a day encouraged, lack of curiosity a virtue, willful ignorance the sign of a normal man. Normality itself, the blanky of the good guy, the shield of cowards, the timeless tool of power, becomes a history of madness by which the madness of history goes on and on and on…

Robin Williams' death last week should remind us of what a reaper and binder alcohol can be. One of the many ways this drug can kill is to take a garden variety depression and turn it into the final circle of Dante's Inferno. There is evidence that it played precisely this role in Mr. Williams' tragic last act.

This would also be a good moment to remember that the corporations selling us this toxic drug are working politically to prevent more benign alternatives from being available to alcoholics.

Cornucopia, Wis - A comprehensive voting analysis of members of the National Organic Standards Board, an expert body formed by Congress to insulate the governance of the industry from undue corporate influence, clearly illustrates how illegal appointments to the board by current and past USDA Secretaries have subverted congressional intent.

The study, produced by The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based farm policy research group, analyzed the voting record of each individual board member over the past five years, including corporate representatives who were placed on the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) filling seats that were specifically set aside for farmers and other independent organic industry stakeholders.

The Yemeni government has paid compensation to civilian victims of a 2013 drone strike that hit a wedding convoy - which US Government sources have claimed killed only ‘militants.’

International human rights NGO Reprieve has obtained documents promising compensation for all 12 people killed and all 24 injured in the December 2013 strike. The Yemeni government has stated that it does not make compensation payments to those it believes were militants or the families of militants. Based on the documentation, Reprieve estimates that close to US$ 1.24m has been promised.

Liberalism, framed as a socio-political ideal, argues that human beings are good and social progress achievable. It is a “glass half-full” outlook. Within this paradigm all individuals, not just members of a specific religion, race or nationality, should have political and civil rights. Here also neither the state nor the law is an end in itself. They are instruments for the creation and maintaining of a environment meant to promote freedom while minimizing social inequalities. Holding this ideal does not preclude identifying with a particular ethnic or religious group. It does, however, preclude any claim of exclusive rights for such groups to the detriment of others.

Within the Western environment many Jews held to this liberal ideal. They saw it as in their interest to work toward an environment of universally applied political and civil rights while minimizing social inequality. For instance, by the mid-twentieth century in the United States, many Jewish organizations were allied with African Americans in their struggle for civil rights and equality. However, this proved to be a complex alliance and it ultimately broke down. Its demise marked a waning of organized American Jewish liberal activism. What had happened?

In an article published on Left-East on Aug. 10, Russian writer Ilya Budraitskis laments "there is no antiwar movement in Russia." His article is a rather bleak, despairing outlook on the prospects of organizing against "war" in the border regions between Ukraine and Russia. He titles his article "Hope in a Hopeless Place."

Budraitskis describes the war being waged by the neo-conservative governing regime in Kiev as an "interstate conflict," meaning that Russia bears an equal, if not greater, responsibility for the conflict. This scenario is not only a gross misread of Russia's position and role in the conflict, it also leads us nowhere in understanding what to do.

SpeakOut is Truthout's treasure chest for bloggy, quirky, personally reflective, or especially activism-focused pieces. SpeakOut articles represent the perspectives of their authors, and not those of Truthout.

New York –Two unprecedented applications are pending that, if approved, would allow the commercial sale of millions of genetically engineered (GE) eucalyptus trees for development into vast industrial GE tree plantations in the US and Brazil. The Campaign to STOP GE Trees [1] is expanding and mobilizing to stop these and all large-scale releases of GE trees into the environment.

In the US, ArborGen has a request pending with the Department of Agriculture to commercially sell freeze-tolerant GE eucalyptus trees; at the same time in Brazil, Futuragene has requested permission to release GE eucalyptus trees from CTNBio, Brazil's biosafety regulatory agency. CTNBio is planning a public hearing on the Futuragene GE tree application on 4 September. The USDA could release their draft ruling at any time.

A court in Yemen today heard that an American citizen who disappeared in February this year may have been transferred to a secretive, US-funded ‘court’ which has been strongly criticised by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for failing to meet international fair trial standards.

Sharif Mobley, from New Jersey, disappeared from Sana’a Central Prison six months ago and has been held in secret detention ever since. He has not been produced for any of his last four trial hearings in a civilian court in the country’s capital, where he is facing murder charges. He continues to be denied any access to his lawyers.

Washington, D.C. – Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and co-counsel Joseph Margulies filed a motion asking the Court of Military Commission Review to vacate former Guantánamo prisoner David Hicks’s conviction in the military commissions for “material support for terrorism.” Hicks appealed his conviction in November, following the D.C. Circuit’s 2012 decision in Hamdan v. United States, which held that material support for terrorism is not a war crime and, thus, is beyond the jurisdiction of military commissions. Hicks’s appeal was stayed pending the ruling in Al-Bahlul v. United States, which similarly held last month that material support is not a war crime and cannot be tried by military commission. Hicks – who was also a party to the historic Supreme Court ruling in Rasul v. Bush – pled guilty in 2007, the first prisoner to be convicted in a military commission.

“The D.C. Circuit ruled unanimously that material support could not be tried in a military commission under any set of facts or theory of law before 2006. No matter how this case is framed, David Hicks was convicted of a non-offense,” said CCR Senior Staff Attorney Wells Dixon. “The principled and just result is to set aside his conviction without delay, as would happen in any ordinary criminal case. David Hicks committed no crimes, but has suffered horribly from his ordeal at Guantánamo, and he deserves relief.”

Cut off, separated, fractured, on the outside, buying, spending, everything monitored, everything under the hard eyes of the police state, everything kept in check by the gatekeepers of the dream. The smallest move threatening the structure of the institution and the weapons come out in an instant, people dragged away in chains and everyone left cowering on the floor. The USA - where everyone seems like they're doing what they want, but the entire place is under lockdown control.

Liberty, freedom, democracy are privileges given and taken away. Laws, equality, rights open with the markets and the markets are closed. Torture is not torture, war is not war, and corporations are people. A society of riches built on deprivation; a nation of prison, reality is the yard. When there is a fraudulent essence at the heart of a society, then amorality becomes integrity, stupidity becomes culture, and the shadows become home to those who refuse the lie. We again find ourselves in the best of all possible worlds, the best country in the history of the planet, the freest, bravest, finest. When the constitution is devoured, then that country becomes a monster of negation, an obese anorexic, a foregone conclusion. Idiocy becomes patriotic duty. Six hours of TV a day encouraged, lack of curiosity a virtue, willful ignorance the sign of a normal man. Normality itself, the blanky of the good guy, the shield of cowards, the timeless tool of power, becomes a history of madness by which the madness of history goes on and on and on…

Robin Williams' death last week should remind us of what a reaper and binder alcohol can be. One of the many ways this drug can kill is to take a garden variety depression and turn it into the final circle of Dante's Inferno. There is evidence that it played precisely this role in Mr. Williams' tragic last act.

This would also be a good moment to remember that the corporations selling us this toxic drug are working politically to prevent more benign alternatives from being available to alcoholics.

Cornucopia, Wis - A comprehensive voting analysis of members of the National Organic Standards Board, an expert body formed by Congress to insulate the governance of the industry from undue corporate influence, clearly illustrates how illegal appointments to the board by current and past USDA Secretaries have subverted congressional intent.

The study, produced by The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based farm policy research group, analyzed the voting record of each individual board member over the past five years, including corporate representatives who were placed on the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) filling seats that were specifically set aside for farmers and other independent organic industry stakeholders.

The Yemeni government has paid compensation to civilian victims of a 2013 drone strike that hit a wedding convoy - which US Government sources have claimed killed only ‘militants.’

International human rights NGO Reprieve has obtained documents promising compensation for all 12 people killed and all 24 injured in the December 2013 strike. The Yemeni government has stated that it does not make compensation payments to those it believes were militants or the families of militants. Based on the documentation, Reprieve estimates that close to US$ 1.24m has been promised.

Liberalism, framed as a socio-political ideal, argues that human beings are good and social progress achievable. It is a “glass half-full” outlook. Within this paradigm all individuals, not just members of a specific religion, race or nationality, should have political and civil rights. Here also neither the state nor the law is an end in itself. They are instruments for the creation and maintaining of a environment meant to promote freedom while minimizing social inequalities. Holding this ideal does not preclude identifying with a particular ethnic or religious group. It does, however, preclude any claim of exclusive rights for such groups to the detriment of others.

Within the Western environment many Jews held to this liberal ideal. They saw it as in their interest to work toward an environment of universally applied political and civil rights while minimizing social inequality. For instance, by the mid-twentieth century in the United States, many Jewish organizations were allied with African Americans in their struggle for civil rights and equality. However, this proved to be a complex alliance and it ultimately broke down. Its demise marked a waning of organized American Jewish liberal activism. What had happened?

In an article published on Left-East on Aug. 10, Russian writer Ilya Budraitskis laments "there is no antiwar movement in Russia." His article is a rather bleak, despairing outlook on the prospects of organizing against "war" in the border regions between Ukraine and Russia. He titles his article "Hope in a Hopeless Place."

Budraitskis describes the war being waged by the neo-conservative governing regime in Kiev as an "interstate conflict," meaning that Russia bears an equal, if not greater, responsibility for the conflict. This scenario is not only a gross misread of Russia's position and role in the conflict, it also leads us nowhere in understanding what to do.